Freindship and Hope
by cardcaptorliawa
Summary: Before and during a summer festival, after The Sealed Card, Tomoyo reflects on the nature of hope.


The day of the summer festival dawned clear and bright, and the  
>forecast told that the evening would remain clear, and that enough of a<br>breeze would pick up that the lingering heat would be tolerable. The  
>Fortunetelling Sakura Cards, as interpreted by Kero-chan, agreed. Yue's<br>dissection and interpretation of the former, with results close enough to  
>Kero-chan's that most of the Kinomoto household didn't see why he<br>bothered, agreed in every particular. And so Sakura set about making plans  
>for them all to meet and walk to it together (aided by the fact that<br>Tsukishiro Yukito was sleeping over again, as he had been doing  
>increasingly often since the Unsealed Card Incident).<p>

Tomoyo put the telephone down after Sakura hung up and sighed.

She had always known that when Sakura found the person who would  
>make her happy, she herself would be increasingly left out, and that<br>Sakura would grow away from her.

She just hadn't anticipated how *quickly* Sakura would grow away  
>from her. Or how like the onset of influenza it would feel... Watching<br>Sakura in secluded girl-in-a-relationship talks with Chiharu or Rika.  
>Seeing Sakura act as if, since she had confessed her feelings to Li<br>Shaolan, her friendship with Tomoyo had melted away to little more than  
>hers with Rika or Naoko, as if Tomoyo had never been the girl she trusted<br>enough to be her anamchara. Listening to Sakura try to reestablish that  
>same friendship, seemingly ignorant of the causes but vaguely aware of a<br>rift where once there had been none -

/"Why didn't you tell me, Tomoyo-chan? I thought we were  
>friends?"

That had been when she had called Hiiragizawa in England, worried  
>that Sakura and Kero-chan had completely ignored a possible danger.<p>

After all, the Void had had "negative" power enough to balance out  
>all fifty-two "positive" cards. Now that Sakura had transformed it into<br>the Hope, surely there was an imbalance? Surely it might be dangerous,  
>perhaps even catastrophic?<p>

/"No, not really, Daidouji-san. After all... well, but I suppose  
>they don't tell that story, in Japan."

/"What story is that?"/

/"It's a Greek story... Greece is like China, you understand, in  
>Europe; all the cultured stories come from them. Once, all human beings<br>were much like Sakura, only even more inclined to go along with what  
>people wanted of them. And then one god defied his own in order to make<br>the lives of humanity better; and when he had done that, humans began to  
>make their own choices. And some of them were good, and some of them were<br>ill, as choices ever are./

/"And so the gods, angered that their creation was no longer  
>following the lines that they had set for it, determined to punish it as<br>well. While before they had made many kind and gentle gifts for humanity,  
>now they made cruel and terrible gifts and sealed them in a jar. And they<br>took one girl, set insatiable curiosity in her head, and gave the jar to  
>her, warning her never to open it..."

The afternoon of the day of the summer festival, Tomoyo went out  
>to purchase video cassettes, to be sure that she would have enough to<br>record the festival and make copies for Sakura and for the Li cousins. She  
>explained as much to Li Meiling when the two ran into each other in the<br>store.

"Thanks," Meiling said quickly. They all knew, of course, that  
>soon Shaolan and Meiling would have to go back, but they were all<br>tiptoeing around the notion and refusing to speak it aloud, keeping this  
>precious bubble of happiness for a few more days.<p>

For it was happiness, at least for Sakura - and Tomoyo had  
>discovered long since that if she could not always be happy when Sakura<br>was happy, she could *never* be happy when Sakura was not. So she had  
>resolved to make Sakura happy whenever she could, and so to be at least<br>content.

She half-suspected that the Chinese girl had similar resolutions  
>regarding Li Shaolan, but it was not the sort of question one could well<br>ask.

"I'm getting a new handbag," Meiling explained, perhaps aware that  
>she had been a little abrupt. "My old one has a hole in it, so it won't do<br>for the festival tonight."

"Oh. I see." It came out much flatter than she had intended.

"Is something wrong?"

"Hiiragizawa-kun."

"You're still annoyed that he told you a story for an answer and  
>wouldn't explain it? Like I said, the clan elders do that *all* the time.<br>I know how you feel."

"He *said* there to be no danger of catastrophe, but - "

"If he said there wasn't, then there wasn't." Meiling tossed her  
>head. "Maybe Sakura-chan's got more oomph than he does now, but he<br>remembers being one of the very best for centuries, so I'd say he knows  
>what he's talking about."<p>

"You are very trusting, Meiling-chan."

"Well... I tend to assume that the magicians know what they're  
>talking about when it's magic. After all, if they're wrong, it's not like<br>you or I could do anything about it anyway."

Tomoyo disagreed, but she let the sore subject drop.

"Although that *is* weird that he told that story," Meiling  
>continued out of nowhere after they had paid for their purchases. "We had<br>it in English class, only in our version it was a *box* that had all the  
>evils of the world."<p>

"They were not *evils*, exactly," Tomoyo contradicted.

/"They made Disease, for humans had always been healthy; and Old  
>Age, for they had been forever young; and Heartbreak, for it had been<br>enough to love and know that one's love was alive, and being loved in  
>return was mere icing on an already delightful cake..."

"Although some of them were. Some of them most certainly were."

The evening of the festival, they met in front of the Kinomoto  
>residence, all of them in yukata. Tomoyo's spare one was a little<br>undersized on Meiling, but Shaolan fit perfectly into Touya's castoffs -  
>which struck everyone as cute except for the two boys involved.<p>

"I'm letting the Cards out so they can go to the festival," Sakura  
>explained.<p>

"You WHAT?" Meiling demanded.

"They promise to be on their best behavior."

"Hey, marbleface in there and I *both* agree it'll work, so I  
>don't see why you should put up a rumpus, girl," Kero-chan snapped.<p>

As the small flying teddy bear and Chinese girl glared at each  
>other, Tomoyo flipped the switch on her camcorder and began recording<br>Sakura calling her Key into form and the sigil forming around her.

The Card Mistress threw all the cards into the air, and waited  
>until they began fluttering down around her Keystaff to finish her<br>incantation.

"RELEASE!"

And in streaks and streamers of light, they all formed and went  
>down the street towards the festival - some rushing so quickly that they<br>undoubtedly did not fully take shape until halfway there, some more  
>slowly, and last of all the Light and the Dark bowed to the company and<br>walked off after their fellow cards, arm in arm.

"I'm glad you're staying to walk with us," Sakura said, and Tomoyo  
>hastily snapped back to get shots of the four Element Cards, standing<br>around the group like so many of the Daidouji family's bodyguards, and the  
>Mirror, shyly nestling into Kinomoto Touya.<p>

"Well," Yukito said brightly from the opposite side of Touya,  
>"shall we go?"<p>

And they went.

For some reason, Tomoyo's odd mood had only gotten stronger since  
>they arrived at the festival; she finally turned videotaping Sakura and<br>Shaolan over to the Windy and left to wander the festival by herself for a  
>while.<p>

At one booth, the Fight was grimly trying to throw balls at a  
>stuffed animal and win it; at another, the Big and the Little were trying<br>to catch goldfish in little nets. She passed the Power and a few  
>half-drunk salarymen laughing and wrestling, turned down a secluded path<br>that led into a quiet corner, and nearly tripped over the Silent. The  
>Silent looked up, smiled, put a finger to her lips, and went back to<br>reading her book. Tomoyo nodded politely and went on wandering.

/"She finally pried the stopper loose, and just as she was about  
>to peer in, a terrible, ugly monster shot out. And then another, and<br>another."/

But she didn't know why Hiiragizawa Eriol's story was preying on  
>her mind; anything further from the peace and joy and laughter of the<br>summer festival could not be imagined.

Here the Wood was reuniting a lost child with his mother, there  
>Touya and the Mirror were sharing an order of taiyaki while Yukito<br>polished off the second of three more, and over to one side Meiling and  
>the Jump were playing a game of dodge-me with the Rain.<p>

She had just found another semi-secluded corner after spending  
>some time watching the Flower and the Glow dance to the Song's, well,<br>song, when she registered that someone else was there.

Tomoyo looked up, and saw the Hope.

"To-mo-yo-cha-n," the other said tentatively, after they had  
>stared at each other for some time. "You are... Sakura-sama's dearest<br>friend."

"I used to be," Tomoyo answered, ignoring the swelling in her  
>throat.<p>

"You are not so now?" While the Hope's face was curious, it also  
>seemed somehow... sad?<p>

"Sakura-chan and Li-kun..." Tomoyo stopped, thought for a moment,  
>and started again. "She loves Li-kun, and I am happy for them. A love that<br>can overcome obstacles thus... it is not surprising that they should  
>overlook others when caught up in it. Even when she had to seal his most<br>precious memories of her, because of you, he loved her still. Or again."

The Hope blinked, lifting one hand to push a strand of pale hair  
>back over its shoulder.<p>

"So I suppose, as she loves him, he is become her dearest friend,  
>and I am... her second-dearest friend. Perhaps. Although as she seems to<br>have forgotten all our closeness, Rika-chan might well be now."

"If the memory of the closeness is gone," the Sakura Card said,  
>"that does not mean the closeness is gone, right? So she could make<br>another memory of the closeness, even if it isn't the same memory?"

"She... probably could," Tomoyo said tentatively, "but we are not  
>as close anymore. Li-kun is closer to her, because he is the person she<br>likes, so that makes me farther away."

"The person one likes best... wanting... falling in love," the  
>Hope said, "I don't understand these things. I don't understand why humans<br>seem to spend so much time on them, and why they get in the way.

"But I understand family. I understand friendship. I know why it's  
>important. I know and I comprehend, because Sakura-sama gave me her most<br>precious memories of her friendship with you.

"Maybe if she had given me memories of the Li I would understand  
>better; or if the Li had given me his memories of her, as he might have<br>done had she not aided him. But I heard the Li speaking, and he said that  
>he is coming to care for his sisters again, as he has already come once<br>more to care for his mother. Surely, if I remember what the friendship  
>once meant, and you remember what the friendship once meant, you and<br>Sakura-sama can make it come to mean those things once again...?"

But Tomoyo barely caught that last. Her mind was turning earlier  
>words over and over.<p>

/"Aided him."/

/"Family."/

/"Her most precious memories..."/

/"The terrible ugly monsters stormed out of the jar, each crueler  
>and more terrible than the last."

/"'It can hardly make things worse,' she sighed, and pried the  
>stopper loose once more. Slowly, Hope fluttered out; and she was fair."

"Fair and terrible..." Tomoyo murmured.

"Did you say something?" the Hope inquired politely.

"Do you have any idea," Tomoyo said, firmly refusing to let her  
>voice tremble, "where Sakura-chan might be?"<p>

The Hope's pale eyes blanked out for a moment.

"Sakura-sama is buying sparklers," she said, "with the Li... three  
>girls... and a boy who claims that sparklers were created in order to<br>scare away ghost foxes."

"Thank you very much," Tomoyo said politely, and set off for that  
>corner of the festival at a not-quite-run, the Sakura Card trailing<br>behind her.

She had forgotten how much hoping hurt.


End file.
